Virtual Personality

I immensely enjoyed reading this piece. It was witty and cutting while giving great insight into how people live their lives through the eyes of simulated characters. After some time, it became difficult for Chuck to differentiate between himself and SimChuck. I thought it was really amusing that he started having a nervous breakdown because he could not comprehend "the meaning of life" in relation to the Sims world. Then, to add to the headache he had created for himself, he calls the creator of the Sims, Will Wright, and they have a philosophical debate on the purpose of the Sims. From their conversation, it seems that the game teaches quite a few of its players about themselves and the selves they may not have been aware of their whole lives. Personally, I felt that Chuck learned some very important things with his own self reflection. For one thing, I think Chuck found out that trying to simulate his real world life or understand himself better using a game like the Sims, only answered a few of his questions about himself and people in general while opening up a whole new can of worms filled with more questions than he started with. I think he also learned that obsessing over and living his life through a game for hours upon hours instead of actually living for himself was slowly taking away his free will just as he had control over and eventually gave up SimChuck's free will.